


Renascitur

by shortcircuitify



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, F/M, Human Outsider (Dishonored), Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 03:57:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12573188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortcircuitify/pseuds/shortcircuitify
Summary: And with the death of the Outsider, the world is born once more.(But maybe in a different way than you think)





	Renascitur

The knife plunges into his chest, what was once stone bursting into rivulets of blood down his chest. He feels it all too clearly, in a way he has not in a very long time. It aches, the pain, but he _feels_ it, and he can _feel_ the rough leather of Billie Lurk’s coat as his vision blurs.

“It’s for the best,” she says, or at least he thinks so. His blood is warm and slippery between his fingers.

And with the death of the Outsider, the world is born once more.

\---

He awakens with a gasp, air raking his lungs like a newborn babe. He claws at his chest, blood soaking his shirt although there are no cuts on his skin. Stone scratches at his back, and there is no one around him except the chilling wind of twilight, the distance waves of the ocean lapping against the shore.

He is a boy on the brink of being a man. What is his name?

He does not remember. And so, he wanders.

\---

The world feels fresh, slowly beginning to rise up from the cusp of life.

And there is a culture dipped in the heat of the southern sun just beginning, its name: Karnaca - steeped in the deep, lilting voices of its people.

The towns are just beginning to settle, stone walls rising above the bustle of farms and alchemists. There is no religion holding the children to their mothers’ skirts, and they play freely among the shores and summer woods.

She lives there, in the middle of the colorful, Karnaca woods, the sea on the edge of yard. Her dresses are too long and ill-tailored, handed down from her mother’s mother. She doesn’t mind so much, with her head in the clouds, her mind far away from the small cabin she lives in with her mother and father.

Her mother is sharp, her fingers thin and nimble as she tries to teach her the finer points of basket weaving, pass on the smooth rhythm of her fingers to her daughter. Her father is quiet, mute, but his eyes are soft, and he holds her mother’s hand fiercely when they visit to the nearby town.

And she stays, watches the clouds rolling by, her hands awkward as she mends together the twine her mother gave her.

\---

He finds her there, sitting in the woods, thin trees hiding away her little home. Her features are aquiline, her hair as dark as night and he feels, deep in his bones, a familiarity that makes him want to drop to his knees, encircled in her touch.

He shakes the odd, strange thoughts, suddenly - of all things - embarrassed about the blood staining his shirt, his lack of familiarity with anything surrounding him.

He is no graceful creature, boots stomping loudly on freshly fallen leaves, twigs snapping under his feet.

She turns suddenly, eyes wide, chest thumping with the rapid beat of her heart as they stare at each other, scared and frightened and unsure. There is a thin needle in her hand, used for weaving, and he raises his hands, drops down to his knees.

She watches him, unsure and scared at this young man bowing to her, like she is a princess in the few stories her mother used to tell her.

“Do you need help?” she whispers, the words spilling from her lips, and he nods silently to her.

\---

She washes his clothes, happily, “Anything but basket weaving,” she laughs, and he joins her awkwardly, throat tight and sore. Like he has not truly spoken in hundreds of years.

His chest is bare to the searing sun, red and blotched, and her blush is easily explained by the labor of washing his drenched shirt. She wants to ask, curious beyond belief, eyeing the bloodied water in the basin, but holds her tongue.

“What is your name?” she asks instead.

He smirks, but it is awkward and lopsided, and her eyes draw to his lips, “I don’t know,” he says.

She is incredibly intrigued.

\---

Her mother stares him down, even though she is short compared to his willowy frame.

“Well?” She says, accent thick, and Emily rubs her thumb against her finger nervously.

“He needs a place to sleep. For the night.”

“And he can’t speak for himself?” She has the eyes of a hawk, and the stiff collar of his ripped shirt, clean and saturated with baking soda, makes his skin rub raw. She is not one to deceive, he feels it in his bones, and he is left without explanation for his ratty appearance, his nameless face.

Her lips twitch disapprovingly, mouth opening with cutting words, but Corvo puts his hand on her shoulder, towering above her petite frame, but never over her. His eyes are solemn, hopeful, as if he is on the edge of saying his first words. It only takes a moment, from there.

“Alright, one night,” she says, her eyes trained on Corvo’s.

\---

He stays longer than a night. He doesn’t quite know how time works, but he knows he wastes too much time at this small house in the woods. His muscles have a deep ache, but he helps with the wash and the wood, chopping down trees for the coming winter nights.

He feels very, very old and very, very tired. But Emily helps – she is solemn, serious most days, but her quiet smile and inability to weave simple twine makes his own amnesia less embarrassing.

Most nights he sleeps long and deep, as if recovering from years of uneasy wakefulness, but one night, when all he thinks of is Emily’s dark eyes, he hears her mother whispering in the kitchen, Corvo’s figure tending to the fire.

“He’s… quite alright, don’t you think?”

\---

“I don’t know who I am,” he says, “Or what I’m doing.”

She smiles, tiny dimples forming on the corners of her cheeks. The morning is dark, the first slivers of orange light forming over Karnaca’s restless waves, shadows forming over the leaves of the trees.

“I don’t have the answer to either of those questions,” he nods, “But I don’t know what I’m doing, either.”

She slowly, cautiously, weaves her hand through his. His is larger, but hers is much warmer.

“It looks like you do.”

She snorts in response.

\---

He brings her flowers. She prefers the bouquets of alder and elm he brings instead.

“You’re surrounded by them?” he asks, when her eyes light up at the sight of the familiar branches and leaves sutured into a lop-sided bouquet.

“It reminds me of home.”

“How odd.”

\---

The stars call to him, and in the dark of night, on those rare sleepless nights of his, he tries sleeping under the stars.

She comes too, restless in the little woods of Karnaca, when Pandyssia is just across the ocean and waiting to be discovered by someone as calm and sound as her.

He tells her stories, stories of made up magick and rats and adventures that make her eyes sparkle, excitement crawling through her veins. In those moments, content and peaceful, he feels his heart beat restlessly, and he wonders if they could escape into the unknown, the two of them, away from the monotone villages and villagers of Karnaca.

But when she curls against his side, her scratchy, woolen blanket surrounding them both, her breathing even in sleep, he thinks that staying here might be alright as well.

\---

“You’ve become a homebody,” she laughs one day, when he is up early, already washing the soiled sheets.

“Winter is coming soon,” he says instead, “It’s time to prepare for the long nights,” and she hides her blush in response.

Winter comes and goes. And he stays.

\---

They do not run away, like whimsical children looking for fairy tales.

Instead he kisses her, her parent’s cabin at their backs, and her fingers weave her mother’s twine with ease as she smiles.

They make an odd family – a boy with no name, a girl with willowy fingers, her hot-tempered mother, and mute father.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I am finally putting this out because it has been a few weeks and it has been kind of difficult to put into words what I wanted to convey, so hopefully it came out alright! Thanks!


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